Thanjavur Brihadeeswara Temple (Thanjai Periya Kovil)

One among the temples of the UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites of ‘Great Living Chola temples’, the Brihadeeswarar temple in Thanjavur is one of the biggest and most exceptionally prized engineering destinations of India, known for its beauty and scale. The temple was created with a dream once the king had, to come up with a temple giving homage to Lord Shiva. It was built by the mighty Chola Emperor Raja Raja Chola I in 1010 AD. The first temple to be built in granite, this temple tower has an elevation of 66 meters. History says there is no granite quarry for nearly 50 kilometers of circumference around the temple. Hence, the massive sized stones employed in the temple construction should have been brought from far off places.

Around 130000 tons of granite could have been utilized. Even the expert architects marvel at how the octagonal shaped cap stone weighing about 81 tons was lifted and placed on top of the temple tower! The original name of the deity given by the king itself was ‘Rajarajeshwarar’ (king of the kings). It was the Marathas who gave it the name Brihadeeshwara (lord of the universe). There was a fact about the shadow of the main tower which will not fall, but it was later proven wrong and it was just a gossip. The Nandi statue at the entrance of the temple is carved out of a single stone. The main tower, which is about 200 feet high is often called ‘Southern Meru’. A portrait of Raja Raja Cholan paying obeisance to Lord Natarajar is undoubtedly, the first ever instance of a royal portrait.

All three entrances are designed with guardian figure sculptures and are approached by a richly carved monumental flight of stairs. The hundreds of niches of the exterior are decorated with sculptures of divine figures especially Shiva and Parvati. The temple was laid out on a concise plan of 16 x 16 squares in Dravidian architecture. The interior contains the typical passageway for worshippers to perform a circumambulation on two levels. The main sanctum is the lingam of Lord Shiva which is 4m tall, making it one of the largest of its kind. A later addition to the site is the Subrahmanya Shrine, built in 1750 CE. There are a lot of elaborate paintings on the walls of the temple depicting Lord Shiva and other important events of those times. Most of these paintings are of bright colours and stand out against the granite structure. It is inevitable to prepare an itinerary of a South India tour, without this temple.